


The Wayward Phantom

by Nunonon



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Rewrite, Genderswap, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 16:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14525076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nunonon/pseuds/Nunonon
Summary: One year rewrite AU where the protagonist is female. Spoilers for the entire game and canon divergence as necessary.Akira Kurusu knew that she didn't fit into other people's ideas of how she should be. She was too quiet, too tall, too unyielding... too much of everything people thought she shouldn't be. Nevertheless, she was the one who became the leader of the Phantom Thieves and if she could not bend the will of heaven, then she would move hell to accomplish their goals.Crossposted from my tumblr.





	1. False Testimony

Akira was tall for a girl. She’d be tall for a boy, too. She knew that. It was something she could _use_. Some people didn’t like it, but that was their business. Not hers.

It had happened when she was heading home from practice, wrist guards strapped together and dangling from her fingers, her training gear shoveled unceremoniously into her shoulder bag. She heard it before she saw it.

_“Just get in the car!”_  
_“Stop it!_ ”  
_“How dare you cross me!”_  
_“Stop it! Let me go! No…!”_  
_“Don’t give me that shit…”_

She dropped her gear.

She hadn’t been thinking when she instinctively placed herself directly in front of the drunk man, giving the woman time to put some distance between them. The girl pushed his chest back firmly with the heel of her hand, and calmly warned him to _stop_. The man called her a brat, grabbed her wrist. Akira pulled her wrist back in a half-circle with practiced dexterity, wresting away from his grip with an easy strength a fool wouldn’t expect from a girl. When the half circle is nearly completed, the man’s fingers finally slip and her hand is in position just above her target. She clamps her hand down on _his wrist_. See how _he_ liked it. She used only enough force to give her control of his forearm. Nothing more, nothing less. She took a step forward to get into a different position to lock his arm completely, but he moved unexpectedly, lost his balance, slipped from her clutches, hit his head on the sidewalk.

She hadn’t meant for that to happen.

…She didn’t mean… 

—She had been _planning_ to lock his arm, get behind him, bend him over, and hold him close to the ground until he tired himself out. This was all wrong.

The man got back up with a vengeance, a little blood trickling down his face.

“Damn brat, I’ll sue!”

“For what!” she fired back, through her shock. “You’re the one who was forcing yourself on someone else!”

But that wasn’t what mattered later. It wasn’t what the police heard and it wasn’t what the woman, the only witness, had said. In the police report, there was no mention of the man’s assault on the woman, only that Akira had been the aggressor, had used martial arts on a defenseless man who had done nothing wrong. The man’s name was kept out of the local news because he was the ‘victim.’ Akira’s name wasn’t. The trial went by in a half-remembered, disassociated blur. The longer it went on, the quieter she grew. All her faults were dragged out before court and soon outside of it. People who had once been friends now gossiped openly about her, as did their parents.

_“…A girl who does martial arts? Please! No wonder this happened!”_

_“Well, I heard her parents didn’t want her to, but she was too aggressive and wouldn’t listen…!”_

_“You know what they say about a violent child…”_

That wasn’t true!

Her parents had never said that!

And _she_ was the one who hadn’t done anything wrong…!

…

…Right…?

Not only was Akira expelled from her school, she was expelled from her gym. The worst of it was after her probation had been decided upon. When she learned her parents planned to send her away for a year to live with someone she didn’t even know, a _stranger_ , as if she were a burden, as if _shame_ clung to her skin and couldn’t be scrubbed away.

As if she were a _criminal_.

\---

After the trial, Akira learns never to say anything more than she needs to. She learns to keep her head down and to mind her own business. She learns that other people can’t be trusted, especially adults.

…Most importantly, she learns the truth doesn’t matter if there is someone influential enough to suppress it.

She sometimes wonders who that man was, but until she moves to Yongen-jaya she is too busy ducking behind buildings or into side streets whenever she spotted old friends of hers. She buys a pair of fake glasses because the minute or two before someone recognizes her face behind the lenses is exactly the amount of time she needs to escape their soon-to-be souring glances. Her friends used to call out to her, invite her places. They used to make Akira feel like she belonged, as if she had a place in the world. Now? They visibly _recoiled_ when they saw her. Or _worse_ , they ignored her and talked about her like she wasn’t even there. 

She felt betrayed. Hurt. Somehow, she felt like a _loser_ for even feeling angry about it. She hadn’t expected her friends to stand by her _every_ step of the way or to actively fight back against the _lies_ about her, but she supposed, in some small way, she had _hoped_ one of them would at least ask for her side of the story. That they might try to put the same faith in her that she had in them. 

But they never did.

When she takes the train to Yongen-Jaya, she decides a few things. She decides the incident _never happened_. If she never told anyone in her new school, then they wouldn’t _know_. She decides she wouldn’t talk about herself. If no one got close enough to her, then they wouldn’t have a chance to figure it out. She decides that this was _her_ decision. That _she_ was the one who turned her back on her former friends and that _she_ , not her parents, had chosen for her to move to Yongen-Jaya, to go to Shujin. It was a good prep school, she had good grades. It only made _sense_ to go to a _better_ school.

She wouldn’t stand out, she wouldn’t make trouble, and she’d keep her problems to herself.

It was only going to be a year. She could do this. She _had_ to do this.

…

It was a shame, then, that the entire school found out about her criminal record before she’d even boarded the train. There was no amount of mental rehearsal that could have prepared her for that fateful first day…


	2. Soul of Rebellion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akira has a powerful awakening to her persona.

Her mother calls her the day she arrives in Yongen-jaya, but Akira sends her straight to voicemail. If she wanted to check up on her, then Akira decided that she needed to go through her new caretaker. Even if it was the courts that ordered her transfer, she still felt bitter and ashamed that her parents approved of it. 

“In other words,” Soujiro sums up for her when he shows her the dusty room in the attic, “they got rid of you for being a pain in the ass. “

Soujiro isn’t exactly kind at first, but for all his bark, Akira didn’t think he was cruel. And, in this instance, she didn’t think he was wrong. 

That night, she dreamt of prison and a man with a long nose. 

She wouldn't understand what any of it meant until much later, not until after she discovers the first Palace with Ryuji...  
\---

Her persona comes to her like a painful memory, willful, unyielding, _uninvited_. Arsene speaks to her as if he knows her, as if he knows regret. And if what Morgana tells her later is true, then he _is_ a part of her. A chatty, masculine, _romantic_ part of her that she hadn’t realized existed.

 _“What’s the matter?”_ He says to her after she stops struggling against the knights. She can’t tell if he’s a part of this hellish castle prison nightmare or something else entirely. A mental breakdown maybe. Some kind of auditory hallucination.

He continues to urge her, fiercely, _“Are you simply going to watch? Are you forsaking him to save yourself?”_

…At first, it was a lot like having someone who knew exactly how to press the right buttons to make her angry. He made it sound so _easy_ , so _simple_ , as if fighting back was a matter of _deciding_ to, never mind the fact she didn’t even have the _means_.

_“Death awaits him if you do nothing.”_

She knew that! But what could she do, pinned here like this? She _wasn’t_ a small girl, and she knew her way around a fight, but these men—creatures?—were far _stronger_ than her. There was no saving Ryuji if she couldn’t even save herself. She was going to _die_.

 _“Was your previous decision a mistake then?”_ the voice in her head persists, as if to ignore her excuses, her perfectly reasonable justifications. And that was it, the last straw. Pinned to the wall, she grinds her teeth.

Ridiculous. _Of course it wasn’t_. She’d had enough. Release her from this _mockery_.

It’s not fear that moves her but righteous _fury. How dare he?_ This _voice_ in her head? What did _he_ know if he wouldn’t even _listen?_ And how _dare_ these _knights_ , this _bully king?_ Imprison her? Kill Ryuji? _Repugnant._

Ryuji who didn’t even _know_ her and who had told her to run? Who would sacrifice himself so she could live? _No._ He didn’t deserve this.

The knight raises Ryuji up by his neck, sword poised. She remembers the woman from before. Should she have done nothing? _No_. She regretted the way it turned out, but _damn the courts_ , it was the _right thing to do_. Brand her a criminal! Call her a villain! She no longer cared! The beseeching voice was right, doing nothing was _spineless_. It was unworthy of her. She _wasn’_ t wrong and she would stand up to abuse and cruelty wherever and whenever she saw it. Let those who _dare_ come after her for it.

The knight’s grip on his sword tightens. _NononoNO!_ She struggled against the knights. She bared her teeth, kicked her feet. Damn it all, let her _do_ something! _Give_ her the means then, and when faced with the armies of her enemies, she will come for them _all! Each and every one!_ Just let her do something to save him! Please, anything! 

_“Very well,”_ says the voice in her head and immediately something _burned_ within her. _“I have heeded your resolve. Vow to me. I am thou, thou art I…”_

When her persona comes to her, she feels exhilarated. She feels powerful… and terrible. Her senses are eclipsed by an otherworldly strength from inside her and her heart pounds violently against her ribs. Ryuji backs up against the wall. The king falls to his backside, the cowering _rat_. Blue flames consume her whole but she lets it happen, lets it overcome her. She lets the ashes take it all away, everything she had ever been. Gone is the bubbling shame and throbbing guilt from before, gone is the sorrow from who she could have been untouched by trial. When the flames pass, she stands forged anew.

For the first time since that incident, she smiles.

Somehow, in that moment, she knows Arsene’s name before he even speaks it aloud. She knows, she understands. She is him, he is her, they are one. Gentleman thief and delinquent high school girl. Two sides, one coin. She never felt more _alive._

A sword—no, a knife—materializes in her hand and she doesn’t even question it. Did it matter? _No_. Again, she knows what to do before Arsene even tells her. Her enemies stood before her, she held a _knife_ in hands that did not _tremble_. She had Arsene, _dark_ and without _compromise_ , at her back. What more did she _need?_ They came to claim her life! They came to claim Ryuji’s!

Well, let them _try!_

The knights transform into monsters and she strikes them down with ruthless efficiency, Arsene’s voice ringing in her ears. 

She and Ryuji escape, locking the king inside the prison cell, before her persona leaves her and she feels mortal and human and terrified again. 

\---

While Akira and Ryuji had been dashing madly through the dungeon, scrabbling over and through whatever small exits they could find—over the broken bridge, crawling through literal holes in the walls as if they were _beetles_ —she felt an indescribable chill. A _fear_ unlike any she had ever known burned at her nerves and surged through her veins. From where did danger pursue them? To where could they escape to safety? _Why_ was this happening?

_…There was a boy…_

He was lofted over the river in a cage, _screaming and thrashing—tearing_ at the metal helmet, some kind of… _god_ … torture device over his face. His voice sounded ravaged, _raw_ , like a beast ready to be taken to the world beyond. He wasn’t the only one. Others were trapped in lofted cages, or kept in dirty cells staring hopelessly into the abyss, shackles rusting on the wall, like the one she had woken up in.

_If they didn’t escape, was this going to happen to her too?_

And yet, somehow, even these atrocities were mere _details._

Her other, deeper, and much darker fear was directed inwards. She thought that, extraordinary circumstances aside, she was more frightened of herself right now. _What did she just do? What had she—? What happened back there?_

From somewhere inside her, this… _thing_ … had appeared. She could still feel it—him—her—her other self—on the edges of her mind. She had commanded… magic…? Magic that tore at her enemies and broke them down into _nothing_ but _blackened ash_ and _whirling, bloodless dust_. What _terrible power_ was this? What was this almost _ruinous_ desire she had awakened?

Somehow, she felt both _sickened_ and _exhilarated_ at the same time.

And yet still terribly, terribly _human_.

More screams, and Ryuji grabs her elbow and has her duck down behind some boxes before they can be seen by the pursuing guards. Akira feels almost ashamed. At least _one_ of them had their head in the game.

When they moved on, Akira nods to herself, making an unspoken promise to herself and Ryuji to bring the two of them home _alive_.

Soon after, they meet Morgana who is… who was…

…There was no getting around it. Morgana was a talking cat. At least, in appearance. _Not_ -cat, according to Morgana himself. At this point, Akira didn’t think it was her place to correct him. Who was she to tell him what was or wasn’t the truth of the world when she had just been _baptized by fire_ and summoned a _monster_ from inside her _head_.

He also held the only real chance at escape, provided what he said could be trusted. With no other options, together with Ryuji, Akira easily decided to release Morgana.

When they find themselves in trouble again, cornered by more enemies and her clothes transform once more like she was a character in a bizarre magical girl show, she chooses to _fight_. What other option was there? _Run away?_ Ryuji was powerless, and judging by the way he was panting when they climbed those spiral stairs earlier, she wasn’t so sure running would do any good. She had to protect him. She had to protect herself.

Akira finds herself feeling relieved, despite everything, when Morgana summoned his own… what had he called it? Persona? This power was a weapon then. A tool. It was up to _her_ how she used it. 

_She could live with that_.

“Fight like your life depends on it,” Morgana told her when the monsters closed in, readying his slingshot. Akira closes her eyes briefly and takes a deep, steadying breath. When she finishes, she dashes forward into battle once again, bringing her blade down upon the enemy without any sign of hesitation. The enemies fall into nothingness before her, and subsequently Morgana lectures her about being an amateur, tells her how to look for the strengths and weaknesses of her opponent, teaches her how to survive.

_(“Just like a tutorial in a video game,” Ryuji would tell her when they were together later, but Akira would have to take his word on it. She didn’t play a whole lot of games. Personally, she thought it was just like the master of a dojo speaking to a student.)_

After pausing to decide what to do with the still-imprisoned victims and yet another heart-pounding fight to the death, Morgana leads them to the exit where Ryuji , with his bare hands, practically tears off the metal window screen that led to their coveted freedom. She thanks Morgana sincerely and without reservation, because they owed him their _lives_. There was no mistaking that fact.

…

…But, on the way back to reality, she understood why Ryuji’s nickname was Blondie, but just why was hers _Haircut?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
